


Happy Families

by oddegg



Category: Ready or Not (2019)
Genre: Gen, Mild Language, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21840703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddegg/pseuds/oddegg
Summary: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”The Le Domas family through the years
Relationships: Alex Le Domas & Daniel Le Domas, Alex Le Domas & Le Domas Family
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51
Collections: Gothic, Yuletide 2019





	Happy Families

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plastics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastics/gifts).



**_Le Bail’s Gambit_ **

Victor Domas was 15 when he started working on the packet ships for the Black Ball line and learned first-hand why they were named ‘bloodboats’ by the seamen. Lesser men might have buckled under the gruelling work and harsh discipline but Victor toughened quick and even prospered, as far as was possible, while others fell. He had worked his way up to Watch Leader by the time he met M. Le Bail on the _Great Western_ out of Liverpool and on the second night of their journey been invited to play dice.

He had known enough conmen and gamblers by then to sense Le Bail was something different, and Victor snapped into a familiarity with the man almost from the start, having already poured out his ambitions and dreams for the future before he spotted and asked about the curious box in Le Bail’s luggage.

Despite the amount of rum Victor had downed he still noticed an odd way about M. Le Bail when he proposed his wager. “Take a risk” he had said in his hoarse voice, eyes bright and smile hungry, “You may gain an advantage for yourself and your future family. All your future family.”

He did not mention, then, what the risk was, but Victor would have reached his hand out for the box anyway.

**_ABRACADABRA_ **

The Le Domas Printing Company – ‘Le’ added to the family name in honour of its generous benefactor on a spur of the moment whim when Victor was ordering the signage and stationery – was set up, running smoothly and bringing in a tidy profit by the time early spring of 1862 came round and along with the usual main headlines about progress of the war between the states news arrived at Victor’s ear that the _Yorkshire_ had been lost on her trip from New York, along with all hands. Those hands including the ones of a certain M. Le Bail.

Victor felt a genuine pang of loss when he heard, for he had liked the man, but he was a pragmatist and had to also admit to a small sneaking thread of relief. A bet was a bet, but when the man you have won so much off is out of the way… well. It sits easier on the spirit.

So, a letter congratulating Victor on his engagement – to a girl of good family and no small fortune of her own – in autumn of that same year, signed Le Bail in a lavish hand, came as a shock. He would have assumed he’d heard incorrectly about his passage on the ship were it not for the postscript “My trip on the _Yorkshire_ – an unfortunate loss, their 2nd mate was not as blessed as you at games of chance – delayed my arrival in France and my business on the continent, but I shall be coming back in the new year by which time your bride-to-be will be your lovely wife. I hope she enjoys her turn at the puzzle box”.

Let it not be said that Victor felt no pang of conscience when he handed the puzzle box over to the new Mrs Rose Le Domas at midnight on their wedding night. He could after all have broken the engagement. But there _was_ Rose’s substantial dowry, and the introductions to the higher levels of society that her family could provide…

He was very relieved when in the end they played Whist until the small hours.

He was also, somehow, unsurprised both when he heard that the _Manhattan,_ meant to carry M. Le Bail back from England in March of 1863, disappeared en route and when a card arrived in late summer, fulsomely congratulating Mr and Mrs Le Domas on the birth of their first child. A son.

_“I’m certain you will both delight in seeing him grow into a strong man, and carry on your family traditions – felicitations, M. Le Bail”_

**_Family Ritual_ **

The afternoon that plain old Becky Johnston of Rock Hill, South Carolina became Mrs Rebecca Le Domas she had a dazzling smile on her face, her momma’s gold cigarette case tucked into her garter underneath her dress, and a strong certainty that her queasiness that morning hadn’t been down to nerves but to the tiny beginnings of her and Tony’s first child.

That night her smile was less wide and more puzzled as she was led into an elaborate room with more weapons than even the daughter of a keen hunter was used to seeing, told to draw a card from a quaint old box, and then played Chutes and Ladders with a polite circle of Le Domases and an oddly relieved looking Tony.

No smile of any kind was present after Tony was done explaining this particular little family tradition fully later on. Especially when he explained in more detail than Becky was happy with exactly what had happened when his uncle, caught up in hippy feeling, had run off and married a flower child and refused to “play the Man’s Game”. Only to have their personal summer of love end in a very gory fashion.

So, she couldn’t even cut and run, she thought later, staring into the darkness with Tony asleep and snoring next to her. Her hand curved around her stomach, still flat and taut over the small life inside. Her baby would still have to come on back and deal with what she’d turned her back on if she did.

Very well then. She would play their game and she’d play to god damn win. For her family.

**_Secret Council_ **

Daniel joined some Kappa Beta Bullshit fraternity at the start of his stint at Yale, as that’s what seemed to be expected, and nearly laughed in the solemn face of the Pledge Master during initiation because the dude obviously expected the pledges to be freaked out by the robes and occult scenery and the weird rituals. Daniel wanted to tell them that was a pretty average weekend in his family. And that the “blood” they were painting the sigils with was fake as hell to a guy who’d slit his first goat throat age eight. Oh, and their amusing pretend stabbing with a prop dagger – did they know what it sounded like when a man got stabbed in the gut? Daniel did.

Daniel didn’t say anything, and he went through with the stupid fucking initiation and at the party later made a silent pledge to himself to never be sober again during his college career if he could help it.

**_Escape From Colditz_ **

On the morning of his big sister’s wedding Alex spent two hours at the front gates of the estate, looking at the ten feet of road on the other side and trying to persuade himself that he could just walk out. He could walk through the gates and onto that road and away. He didn’t have to go back and watch Emilie marry some idiotic Wall Street guy. He didn’t have to go to the Le Domas family room later and watch idiot guy draw a card.

He didn’t have to wait and see if it’s worth trying to remember idiot guy’s name or not, or if he’s going to end up being an efficiently cleaned up stain on the parquet floor after midnight.

And speaking of efficient cleaning… A car pulled up beside him and Stevens stared at him calmly for a moment before saying “Your mother requests that you return to the house, Master Alex. The guests will be arriving shortly.”

Alex looked at the square of grey concrete in front of the gates for a long minute more, then abruptly jerked open the car door and got in. Stevens made no comment about the wait and just smoothly circled the car around. “At least you’re already wearing your suit, sir” he said as they started back “You don’t have to get ready”

Yes. Alex supposed there was that. He was already wearing his suit. Almost like he never planned to leave at all.

**_Old Maid_ **

There is nothing more precious to Helene than family and the Le Domas name.

She’s disgusted when her stupid blonde-haired niece Rachel tries to cheat and not play His game and has no sympathy with the girl’s wailing mother.

_Helene_ had played. After waiting a long time for her Charles. And she’d lost. And she’d lost him.

But she had _accepted_ it and done what was needed. Because family was _everything_.

**_The Game of Life_ **

On his wedding day Daniel is glad Alex doesn’t do a repeat of the wailing at the gates he did at Emilie’s.

However, the whole ‘palely loitering’ thing he does do is scarcely better, following Daniel round most of the day as Daniel rotated through the drinks cabinets in the house and the champagne outside, almost looking like he was going to cry at one point when he’d looked across at Daniel’s lovely dispassionate bride-to-be and blurted out “She should know what she’s getting into”. The hurt in his whispered “I know…” when Daniel said she couldn’t till after the Game was almost enough to put Daniel off his drink.

But it didn’t.

That mild interest was pretty much all he felt when a slightly frowning Charity was handed Le Bail’s box at midnight was perhaps a bad sign, but Daniel would say in his defence that any emotion would have trouble with the small tsunami of alcohol washing through his veins.

“I’ll explain later” he said in response to her quizzically raised eyebrow when Alex clamped a hand over his mouth and fled the room after she had drawn her card. “Let’s play”

When Charity brutally annihilates him at chess Daniel thinks he almost likes her, and then that that’s probably a strange thing to think about someone you just married.

**_Mystery Date_ **

Grace’s first words to him were a slightly slurred “That shirt looks good on you. You know what would look great on you? Me”. And then she’d nearly laughed herself off her bar stool.

Alex didn’t learn her name until the next morning, after she’d woken suddenly, taken one look at him and yelled “SHIT!” before leaping for the bathroom and then alternating between brushing her teeth, apologising for the yelling shit thing and berating him for going home with some strange girl he’d only just met. “I could have been a weird psycho for all you know!”

They ended up back in bed. And on the floor. And in the shower. Alex didn’t go back to his own apartment for a week.

**_Hide and Seek_ **

“It’s not too late to flee you know.”

It is though. Daniel knows that. It was too late for this beautiful little thing with her huge eyes and her sneaked cigarettes as soon as Alex laid eyes on her. His baby brother had grabbed hold and refused to see what it would mean for her.

“You don’t belong in this family.”

She doesn’t. She’s soft and trembling and yes, they’re all soft too but they’re soft and flabby and weak and she’s quick and light like a bird. She should fly away before the Le Domas family catch her in their soft, sticky glue snare.

“I mean that as a compliment.”

He does. Every single one of them is a horror, even his sister’s shitty little kids, even his baby brother. Alex is just a hypocrite about it. Daniel can see he’s going to give Grace the illusion of a way out himself, once Daniel is out of the room, and the kid is probably even telling himself he’s doing it because he’s honourable. Because he’s the decent one.

Alex is just the one that hasn’t been tested before. Daniel faced that for him. All Alex had to do was stay where he was put.

All Grace had to do was not walk into the hidden trap.

_I'm gonna let you go in three, two... release._


End file.
